


something you can hold onto

by t_fic (topaz), topaz, topaz119 (topaz)



Series: you need a rock not a rolling stone [3]
Category: Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Future Fic, Gen, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-09
Updated: 2014-01-09
Packaged: 2018-01-08 02:14:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1127177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/topaz/pseuds/t_fic, https://archiveofourown.org/users/topaz/pseuds/topaz, https://archiveofourown.org/users/topaz/pseuds/topaz119
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>one possible future (you know how comics canon goes...)</p>
            </blockquote>





	something you can hold onto

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the _future fic_ square on my [](http://trope-bingo.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**trope_bingo**](http://trope-bingo.dreamwidth.org/) card, but completely inspired by [this picture](http://topaz119.tumblr.com/post/72732456518) that floated past on my tumblr dash (and for which I failed at finding an original source; I'm so sorry to post uncredited if it's yours.)
> 
> Also: total fluff; and while it's part of the _rolling stone_ universe, it's not necessary to have read the other parts first.

Darcy hadn’t really ever thought about kids. She’d always been okay hanging out with them and definitely had a blast when she tagged along to Asgard with Thor and got to play super-cool, Midgardian auntie to Volstagg's mob, but spawn of her own hadn’t been something she’d spent much time considering. Clint had issues that could fill the Grand Canyon on the subject--with good reason, even if he was a natural with the junior set--so she’d basically dropped the idea into the _MaybeSomedayWhatever_ holding file in her brain and had gotten on with figuring out the mind meld it took to keep grad school, SHIELD, and superheroes in some kind of balance in her life.

Yeah, so that’d been her first mistake.

The second one had been ignoring the whole puking-up-her-guts things for long enough that she passed out from dehydration and general stupidity and landed in the ER. She’d woken up to monitors and IV lines and Clint snarling threats at the nurse who wouldn’t let him into Darcy’s cubicle (which he did apologize for later, because she’d only been doing her job and Darcy was not above using Steve to induce a massive guilt trip.) They were running tests for all kinds of scary shit, and Darcy had been freaking out (less because of the scary shit and more because she had a fucking _dissertation_ to finish and she was running up hard against the deadline to get it in so she could defend it before the end of SHIELD’s funding hit) and Clint had been freaking out (because of the scary shit; he was fine with bankrolling her through another semester if that was what it took) when that same nurse had looked at the two of them and asked the million-dollar question: “Okay, kids, birth control?”

Which, yes, they hadn’t been total idiots: there was the pill (and condoms, too, because Darcy’s body hadn’t ever really liked the hormonal shit) so they’d had an answer for her, but then there was the time that the condom had broken and when Darcy had gone back and looked at her calendar, it was right at the end of the keflex she’d been on for her annual case of strep, and, well. Shit happens, as had been confirmed about an hour later when the test results came back.

And really, for something that unexpected, they’d kinda settled things without much drama. (Well, other than the whole collapsing in the library and being rushed to the hospital part of it.) Once they’d sprung her from the ER and gotten home, before Darcy could really even get going on the _holy shit, now what?_ that was circling around her brain, Clint had looked at her and said, “Your call, sweetheart,” to which Darcy had called total bullshit. They sat there and looked at each other for a while, until Clint had finally added, “I just meant, if you’re good with it, then so am I.” Darcy knew a lot of people would have been less than overwhelmed by that, but she knew him and knew where he was coming from and while she guessed she could blame the hormones, she’d gotten pretty choked up at the trust he’d been implying. 

Yeah, so they’d made it work (which, pregnant sex was pretty freaking awesome, who knew?) and while there were a lot of drawbacks to defending your dissertation at 34 weeks pregnant, Darcy had been so _over_ everything that wasn’t sitting down with her (grotesquely puffy) feet up, she hadn’t had time for nerves. Plus, she’d taken all the omg-I-HATE-THE-WORLD that all the books had warned about (but completely failed at communicating the depths thereof) and channeled it into an attitude that wasn’t taking shit from anyone, let alone people who were questioning her research methodology. It’d been pretty fabulous, even if she hadn’t been able to drink during the celebration that followed. Sif had very kindly done all of Darcy’s shots, plus her own, and if Darcy had maybe noticed her circling Steve like he was prey (and then disappearing off with him and Natasha), she definitely hadn’t said a word and everybody else was waaaaay too gone to have put the pieces together. 

Given the Barton genes, it had come as no surprise to Darcy that Miss Genevieve Lewis Barton had been almost two weeks late--and flat-out gorgeous when she did finally make her appearance. Of course, Clint’s take on the whole thing had been that the pretty came from Darcy as compensation for the most definite Lewis attitude. Darcy could have gotten annoyed at that, but since Clint’s answer to any question/situation/issue in those early days (and still, really, with just a minor adjustment for size and age) had been to hand Evie to Darcy and then wrap himself around the both of them, Darcy had decided to let it slide. 

It’s a complete cliche, but Darcy doesn’t have a clue where the time went. Life on the periphery of the Avengers is never dull, but unless she’s rereading her journals, the years blur together. Some things, of course, stand out, both good (all the standard firsts: smiles, teeth, steps, words (and Darcy is not even a tiny bit jealous that “Da” came before “Mamamamama,” not when she got to see Clint’s face when it happened)) and bad (seriously, Darcy can live without anyone mentioning the whole thing with the Scarlet Witch _ever again_ , even if Wanda did manage to stop things before they got to the point of no return), but she’s not entirely sure how Evie’s gotten so grown up when Darcy swears it was only a few weeks ago that the three of them were walking hand-in-hand-in-hand to the first day of school. 

She can’t say that, of course--she’ll just get twin eye-rolls and a ‘whispered’ conversation about how Mom’s losing her grip and getting all sentimental. So, when she finishes up the latest round of meetings with the Latverian delegation and turns her phone on to find a text from Clint with pictures from the bi-parentally-sanctioned, father-daughter afternoon ditching of school for cafe au lait and macarons, she texts back nothing more than _You damn well better not be feeding your sixth-grader caffeine, Barton._

If Darcy carefully saves the picture into the folder that backs up automatically to Jarvis’s most secure server before she sets it as a her screensaver, that’s nobody’s business but her own.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is once again from Bonnie Raitt's _Rock Steady_.


End file.
